Rate dependent speech processing can be speech specific: Evidence from the perceptual disappearance of words under changes in context speech rate

Abstract

The perception of reduced syllables, including function words, produced in casual speech can be made to disappear by slowing the rate at which surrounding words are spoken (Dilley & Pitt, Psychological Science, 21(11), 1664–1670. doi: 10.1177/0956797610384743, 2010). The current study explored the domain generality of this speech-rate effect, asking whether it is induced by temporal information found only in speech. Stimuli were short word sequences (e.g., minor or child) appended to precursors that were clear speech, degraded speech (low-pass filtered or sinewave), or tone sequences, presented at a spoken rate and a slowed rate. Across three experiments, only precursors heard as intelligible speech generated a speech-rate effect (fewer reports of function words with a slowed context), suggesting that rate-dependent speech processing can be domain specific.